


The First Night

by ratherunnecessary



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Coda, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Inej/Happiness, Spoilers for Crooked Kingdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherunnecessary/pseuds/ratherunnecessary
Summary: "It was a golden feast, with too much to be shared. They kept talking over one another, the stories coming out in bursts, with laughter and tears tying them together as it had all day. Wylan plied her parents with questions about their show, Jesper kept making outrageous jokes, and Kaz was smiling. A real smile. Inej had never seen anything like it before. She stared."
If your favorite Six of Crows ship is Inej/happiness like mine, then this fluffy post-Crooked Kingdom coda is for you.





	

The first night was the longest.

It had to be - it may have been only two years since Inej last saw her family, but it felt like an eternity. She had lost and found herself so many times, but here, in the Van Eck sitting room, curled under her father's arm with her mother's hand in hers, she knew she had finally come home.

Wylan had insisted on serving them the most sumptuous meal his beleaguered cook could finesse, and Jesper produced Kaz right as the dinner bell rang. It was a golden feast, with too much to be shared. They kept talking over one another, the stories coming out in bursts, with laughter and tears tying them together as it had all day. Wylan plied her parents with questions about their show, Jesper kept making outrageous jokes, and Kaz was smiling. A real smile. Inej had never seen anything like it before. She stared.

 _It's real. It's a dream. It's real. It's a dream._ Inej couldn't stop going back and forth between the two. But then, her dreams had never been this rosy, this beautiful.

They'd retired to the sitting room afterwards, and talked through several cups of tea. Now the candles were burning low and Wylan was insisting her parents stay in the house rather than a hotel.

"The house is too large for us," he was saying to them, "and I know Inej will want you close by."

"You have already been far too kind," her father said.

"Inej could afford to set you up at the finest hotel in town, anyway," Jesper said, winking. Inej wrinkled her nose at him, and the wink turned into a full-blown grin. There was no room in her heart to muster any irritation, and she knew regardless that her father's protests wouldn't sway Wylan.

"They have a reservation at the Goedenstraad," Kaz inserted from his corner. "On Inej's tab, of course."

"Nothing's going on Inej's tab," Wylan said. "There's no point. Hildy has already made up a room for you and taken your things up." The capable housekeeper nodded from the sitting room doorway.

"Mother," Inej said in an undertone. "Please stay."

"Of course, dearest. Of course." Her mother squeezed her hands in her own.

"I can show you the way, sir, ma'am." Hildy gestured towards the staircase.

A flurry of kisses, thanks, and _good nights_ and her parents were ushered up the stairs and out of sight. Jesper yawned, jaw popping, and stretched dramatically.

"This is the month for parents, it seems," he sighed. "Wraith, I never thought yours would be next on the list."

"Me either."

"Wylan's practically collecting them."

"If they're all as wonderful as Inej's, I'm happy to be the parent collector," Wylan said, yawning as well. "Look at us. I'm going to bed too. Jes?"

"Right behind you."

Wylan brushed her shoulder and Jesper her hair on their way out. Inej watched them join hands as they disappeared up the stairs, and then she looked around the room. Kaz had stepped out onto the porch. She drifted after him.

"Kaz."

He turned and looked at her. It was the first time they'd been alone since the harbor this morning. All day, she'd had no trouble with words, even the hard ones she'd marshaled to answer her father's first _what happened_? And now she found herself speechless.

The crescent moon was rising behind him, illuminating the severe lines of shoulders, jaw, hair. He was all sharp angles, an avenging angel burned into the pages of a Suli prayer book.

Kaz was watching her. She suddenly realized he was cataloguing her in the same way, as he always did. But while to her he was like the moon, he looked at her like she was the sun.

"I'm expected at the Slat," he said. His bare hands on the crow's head cane were their own source of starlight, luminous.

"Thank you," Inej said. "Kaz, thank you."

He nodded. They both stood there. The moment stretched. A _gondel_ drifted by on the canal behind, the boatman whistling loudly. The wind picked up, died down again.

 _Saints guide us._ They had started on this path and Inej wouldn't let them stop now.

Inej didn't allow herself to think beyond the brief prayer. Two steps, and she could feel his exhale on her cheek. He didn't move back. She placed her fingertips lightly on his shoulder, stood on her tiptoes, and, briefly, pressed her lips to his cheek.

She stepped back. "Be well," she said. Wasn't that what normal folk did? Kissed each other on the cheek and wished each other safe? She couldn't remember. She felt his skin imprinted on her lips, the wool of his jacket burned into her fingers. She wanted - what?

Kaz looked like his heart had stopped. His fingers ghosted over the spot where she had kissed him, A faint furrow of determination appeared on his brow - the great Kaz Brekker, who made everything look effortless - and he closed the distance between them in return.

In a mirror of that terrible moment on the roof of the Ice Court prison, he fit his hand to her cheek. She closed her eyes. All the blood in her body rushed to the point of contact, hot and cool. They both were breathing hard, intermingling in the damp night air.

"Be well," he whispered. His lips brushed her forehead, her cheek, inhaled, and then he was gone, striding down the street, fitting his hat onto his head.

Inej watched him go, hand on the doorway. _It's real. It's a dream, It's real. It's real. It's real._ She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to wake Jesper and Wylan and tell them everything, to have someone share in her disbelief. She wanted to wrap it up carefully and silently store it away, letting it grow to fill the not-so-empty well in her heart.

Who was she, to be this lucky? This blessed? She was Inej Ghafa. She was the Wraith. She was a girl with her whole life ahead of her, filled with light and impossibility.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as [justanxietythings](http://justanxietythings.tumblr.com) \- come scream about this magnificent book series with me!


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